Baron of Lahontan

par Ouellet, Réal

After having enjoyed a considerable success in Europewith the 1702-1703 publication of his three-volume memoire-mainly inspired fromhis long stay in New France (1686-1693)-Lahontan was all but forgotten for morethan two centuries. Then his works were rediscovered in the 1970s, and subsequentlycame to be considered essential, as they offered a better understanding of theliterary evolution of the travel literature genre, as well as of the libertarian movement thatswept over Europe during the age of Enlightenment of the 18^thcentury. His work is also thought to be an invaluable contribution to thehistory of New France. Lahontan, an antihero who was not nearly as publicised asChamplain or other legendary characters of New France, has produced a work thattoday still assists scholars in better understanding French cultural heritageand history.

Article disponible en français : Baron de Lahontan

An Unacknowledge Literary Work
A Short Biographical Account of Lahontan
Lahontan's Work
The Waxing and Waning Popularity of Lahontan's Literary Legacy
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY

DOCUMENTS COMPLÉMENTAIRES
- Images
- Catégories

An Unacknowledged Literary Work

Lahontan's published work is comprised of three volume ^{(NOTE 1)}: Les Nouveaux Voyages de Mr. le Baron de LaHontan dans l'Amérique Septentrionale, Les Mémoires de l'Amérique, and La Suite du Voyage de l'Amérique. The firsttwo titles (published in November 1702 but dated in 1703) are presented as thefirst two volumes of the same book. The third volume was printed a year laterwith three different title pages: Suitedu Voyage, Dialogues and Supplément aux Voyages. Les Mémoires are a treatise on the geographyand ethnography, the fauna and flora, and the administration and commerce ofthe colony. La Suite du Voyage is comprised of the Dialogues Philosophiques avec un Chef Huron and seven letters thatare accounts of Lahontan's stay in Portugal and Denmark. Finally, Les Nouveaux Voyages, composed of 25letters, tells of his progressive discovery of New France and its inhabitants from1683 to 1693.

Up until the 1740s, Lahontan's work wascopiously copied and commented on by English and French authors ofdictionaries, travel accounts or treatises on North America. It was also asource of inspiration for plays such as Delislede la Drevetière's L'Arlequin Sauvage (1721) or novels such asDesfontaines' Le Nouveau Gulliver(1730). Thereafter, it was all but forgotten.

A Short Biographical Account of Lahontan

Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce was born on June 9^th,1666, in Lahontan, a small village in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a mountainrange in South-western France near the Spanish border. His father, Isaac de Lomd'Arce, had spent considerable sums of money on the purchase of the Lahontanbarony, as well as on making the Gave de Pau navigable from Pau to Bayonne. Despitehis apparent wealth, his financial situation was precarious and deteriorated withtime. At the time of his death in 1674, he was ruined and his creditors spentten years seizing his castle and his lands, which would finally be sold in anauction in 1684, amidst countless lawsuits that would last a century.

Nevertheless, Louis-Armand would keep the nameof Lahontan all his life. He left for Canada in August of 1683 with adetachment from the Marine Corps sent to the New World to answer the pressingrequest of Governor La Barre, who feared an imminent war with the Iroquois. Theyoung soldier, who was eventually quickly promoted, took part in two attacksagainst the Iroquois. During the winter of 1688-1689, along with a few Frenchand Natives, he left to explore one of the Mississippi's tributary, La RivièreLongue (probably today's Minnesota River). Back in Quebec City the followingsummer, he became a regular guest at Governor Frontenac's table, who seemed toenjoy Lahontan's conversation. In 1690, he helped defend Quebec City against theattack of Admiral Phipps. Soon thereafter, he made two quick trips to France:the first to settle his family's affaires and the second to present a report onthe defences of forts in the Great Lake region. While on this second trip toFrance, he distinguished himself during an English attack on Plaisance,Newfoundland, (one of France's major fishing outposts). In reward for hisbravery, he was named a king's lieutenant in 1692. Nevertheless, his stay inNewfoundland was short.

He had only just arrived in Newfoundland, when aviolent quarrel erupted between himself and the overbearing, short-temperedrepresentative of the king, Governor Brouillan. Brouillan accused Lahontan ofinsubordination and of serious dereliction of his duties. In return, Lahontanaccused Brouillan of misappropriation of funds. In fear of being arrested andsent to the Bastille, Lahontan boarded a fishing ship destined to reachPortugal in January of 1694. For eight years he lived from pillar to post,unable to settle anywhere. In 1699, he attempted to sell Jean Cavelier's Journal to Spain (Jean Cavelier wasMississippi explorer Cavelier de La Salle's brother). Three years latter, fromHolland or England, he sent to British authorities various treatisesencouraging them to seize New France. The same year, he confirmed his rupturewith his home country by simultaneously publishing his first two volumes, whichwere dedicated to an enemy of France, Frederick IV of Denmark. A few monthslater his third volume was published. Although his three volumes published inAmsterdam were an immediate success and brought him great fame, they broughthim little money. After four years of wandering, he finally found himself atthe court of Hanover, where he spent the nine remaining years of his life. According to the correspondence of thetime, he was a courtier with no official duties who entertained the court and stirredup conversation. The great philosopher Leibniz, with whom he corresponded, andthe Electress Sophia, future mother of King George 1^st of England,both seemed to enjoy his company. Nothing more is known about him and noportrait or any of his personal letters were left to be handed down toposterity. According to records of the Church of Saint-Clement in Hanover, hewould have died on April 21^st, 1716 "before the Easter communion hehad wished to attend". He was 49.

Lahontan's Work

Despite all that was said or written, and as itwas revealed in the comprehensive annotation of his Complete Works (publishedin 1990), that Lahontan's work is quite reliable. For example, whether it be on his account of Admiral Phipps'attack on Quebec City in 1690, on the relations between the differentAboriginal tribes, on the management of the colony or on the flora and fauna ofNorth America, the details of accounts are usually consistent with the mostreliable sources ^{(NOTE 2)}.

In France and in Canada, he was never forgivenfor his violent attacks against France's colonialism and against therestrictive power of the Church. Similarly, many refused to consider the Dialogueswith a Huron chief as aphilosophical text, and so, they erroneously put the writings on the same levelwith the other texts. But in reality, the words of his main character, Adario,are in no way a simple ethnographic treatise. Fifty years before Rousseau, hestates that physical and moral evils come from private property. Byaccumulating more than they need, the rich relegate poor to misery and despair,without finding any more happiness, since they themselves live in the constantfear of losing their possessions, even suspecting their family and friends. Onthe contrary, it is the Huron nation's social equality and the simple livesthey lead that keep them from becoming slaves to two passions found incivilised societies: ambition and greed. There, men, women and children sharethis freedom. Unlike European girls who are forced by their fathers to marrymen whom they "hate to death", Huron girls, "mistresses of their own bodies",are not dominated by their parents. True feelings of love are a sure measureagainst any type of slavery and keeps the heart free; for the Huron do not know"this blinding passion we call love" (p.669) and neither are they familiar withthe unbreakable bond of Christian marriage, which prevents freedom. This harsh critique of the Europeancivilisation-which should not be taken too literally because of the ironicundertones woven through it-contributed to the spread of the "European crise de conscience", a period of increased soul-searching and socialconscience that marked the final years of Louis XIV's reign and made Lahontan awriter of his time.

The Waxing and Waning Popularity of Lahontan'sLiterary Legacy

Although Lahontan's works were considerablysuccessful all over Europe when they were released ^{(NOTE 3)}, they were all but forgotten after being discreditedby the Jesuit Charlevoix in his Histoirede la Nouvelle-France, published in 1744. Although Michelet salutesLahontan in 1863, as one who foreshadowed the "Enlightenment", historians andcritics rarely mention him except to accuse him of lying and of ignorance ^{(NOTE 4)}. The reproach will be constantly repeated by almostevery French Canadian historian until the second half of the 20^thcentury. This is not surprising considering that half of them were clergymen(Ferland, Verreau, Casgrain, Gosselin) and that the majority of the rest(Chapais, Dionne, Gagnon) shared the dominant Catholic ideology. Lahontancriticised the Church, religion and the established authority, but above all else,these clergymen and devout Roman Catholics never forgave him for a shortparagraph in which he spoke ironically about the "virtue of the King'sDaughters who were sent to increase the population rate of the colony." GustaveLanctôt, in 1952, and Sylvio Dumas, in 1972, would publish two vitriolic booksto condemn this "calumny". They stated that "not only is Lahontandisrespectful, he is a liar (he invented tales such as the "Rivière Longue"),he is insubordinate, a bragger, spiteful, a coward, a slanderer..."

These later attacks against Lahontan arose at atime when the general public had manifested an interest in the country'shistory. At that time, the Éditions du Jour released subsequentversions of the Relations des Jésuites(1972) and of Les Œuvres de Champlain(1973), while works destined for the general public-generally published in theform of books or well-illustrated booklets-such as Notre Histoire, Québec-Canada,or Nos Racines, l'Histoire Vivante des Québécois, began to appear in print. One ofthe authors of the latter, Jacques Lacoursière, published the successful Une Histoire Populaire du Québec en QuatreVolumes in 1996-1996 ^{(NOTE 5)}. During the same period, scholars from variousfields and countries began to do systematic studies and published a large volumeof literature on the colonisation of America by the French. These writingsmostly consisted of travelogues, historical accounts, letters or reports frommissionaries and explorers, etc. The immediate value of Lahontan's works-which had beenpublished at the beginning of the Enlightenment era-were seen to be essential,because of their value as a historical document, as well as for their criticalviews. The two later editions of hisDialogues are a proof of this. The first, published by Maurice Roelens, cameout in 1973 in "Classiques du Peuples" atÉditions Sociales; the second, a reproduction of the 1705 edition of Gueudeville, which had been publishedagainst Lahontan's will, was reprinted at Élysée in Montreal. Then, in 1983,followed a new edition of the NouveauxVoyages edited by Jacques Colin at L'Hexagone, as well as Sur Lahontan: Comptes Rendus et Critiques (1702-1711),published by Réal Ouellet (L'Hétrière). Translations in German of the Dialogues (by B. Kohl in 1981) and of the Nouveaux Voyages (by R. Dragsta and D. Kamper in 1982) werepublished, to be followed by an Italian translation of the Dialogues (by F. Surdich, in 1984). These new releases were alsoaccompanied by a considerable volume of literary critiques, too numerous tolist here. The number of critiques written incresed even more after RéalOuellet and Alain Beaulieu published the OeuvreComplètes in 1990 ^{(NOTE 6)}.

Since that time, Lahontan's work has regularlybeen the subject of fresh historical and literary analyses. The French andGerman critiques are mostly on theDialogues, while those in English, usually written by North Americanhistorians, are generally on the unresolved question of the Rivière Longue ^{(NOTE 7)}. To those can be added a few MA theses and two PhDdissertations: Judith Chamberlain Neave's "AStudy of Historical Veracity in the Works of the Baron de Lahontan" ^{(NOTE 8)} and France Boisvert's "Le Développement des Genres Littéraires dans l'Oeuvre de Lahontan."^{(NOTE 9)}

Despite these numerous articles, Lahontan's workstill has not been acknowledged in the world of French literature and amongFrench thinkers, even if it is now considered to have played an important rolein Europe during the period intellectual effervescence that took place from1685 to 1715. One only needs to examine a few historical dictionaries such asFrançois Bluche's "Grand Siècle"(Fayard, 1990, re-issued in 2005), or René and Suzanne Pillorget's France Classique, France Baroque (Laffont,1995), to see that Lahontan is mentioned nowhere in Bluche's tome and Pillorgetonly includes what little knowledge of him that was available fifty years ago. The great Dictionnairedes Lettres Françaises - XVIIIe Siècle - published by Georges Grente, in1960, and then in 1995 (Fayard) under the supervision of François Moureau- mentions recent studies and therepublishing of the Œuvres Complètes,but the recent wave of critical works is barely acknowledged. The only publications of the encyclopedia genre thatmention the studies on Lahontan published in the last thirty years are the Dictionnaire de Biographie Française andthe Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment^{(NOTE 10)}. Thereis also Robert Piart's article "Le Baronde Lahontan (1666-1716)", which is available online and largely takes itsinspiration from the Œuvres Complètespublished in 1990 (^{NOTE 11)}.

On a symbolic level, the fortune's of Lahontan'shistoric and literary reputation did not enable him to rise to the status of a"heroic" historic figure in Canada or in Quebec, rather it is quite to thecontrary ^{(NOTE 12)}. Ironically,while in Nevada there is an dry lake, a valley, a dam, a trout species (Cetthrat), a Baptistassociation and a branch of the Audubon Society named after Lahontan, inCanada, there is only an insignificant street in Montreal and a village nearNorth Bay (Ontario) that bear his name. Despite this lack of recognition,Lahontan seems to be growing in popularity amongst the general public. Recent eventssuch as the August 2006 edition of the Fêtesde la Nouvelle-France in Quebec City, which presented a conference onLahontan and a theatrical debate based on his Dialogues avec un Sauvage, are proof of this growing interest. Lahontan wasalso the inspiration for Réal Ouellet's historic novel, L'Aventurier du Hasard. Le Baron de Lahontan (Quebec City, Septentrion, 1996). And inthe summer of 2008, in Montreal, another event centered on this historiccharacter took place: the festival PrésenceAutochtone [Native Presence] organised an art exhibit at the GrandeBibliothèque [Library] where eight Native artists exhibited works that taketheir inspiration from Lahontan's Dialogues.The exhibition opened on June 13^th with a public reading of theDialogues followed by a group discussion. In addition to these events, hiswritings have also often been used as a part of recent expositions such thePointe-à-Callière Montreal Museum ofArchaeology and History's 2007 exhibit "PremièresNations, Collections Royales de France". Thus, one might conclude thatLahontan and his works have finally reached a turning point and that the tideis turning towards well deserved recognition.

Réal Ouellet

Retired literature teacher

Laval University

NOTES

Note 1. Form more on the biography, the bibliographyand the importance of Lahontan, see the comprehensive edition of his Œuvres Complètes, by R. Ouellet and A.Beaulieu, Montreal, Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1990, vol. 2

Note 2. See the introduction to the Œuvres Complètes, p. 43-82.

Note 3. For more on the literary popularity ofLahontan up until about 1988, see the introduction to the Œuvres Complètes, p. 102-199.

Note 4. In Génie du Christianisme,Chateaubriand writes: "One does not blush to prefer, or pretend to prefer theVoyages of an ignorant and liar Baron of Lahontan over those of a Du Tertre andor a Charlevoix" (Essais sur les Révolutions. Génie duChristianisme, published by M.Regard, Paris, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1978, p. 972).

Note 5. In addition to that one must not forget tomention the anastaticprinting of the two editions of R. G. Thwaites: in 1959 (Pageant Book), thebilingual edition of the Relations des Jésuites (Burrougs, 1896-1901); in 1970(Burt Franklin), the English translation of the works of Lahontan, published in1905, at McClurg.

Note 6. By providing a version of the text, copiouslyannotated, this comprehensive edition shed light on a considerable amount ofdocumentation used for various ethnohistoric works written for the generalpublic, such as the exhibitions on New France or North America during theFrench regime. It also paved the way for subsequent re-editions such as one ofthe Dialogues by Henri Coulet (Paris, Desjonquères, 1993, 2007) and by ThierryGalibert (Arles, Sulliver, 2005).

Note 7. This much debated questionwas recently re-examined during an international symposium by three NorthAmerican researchers: W. Raymond Wood, Steven G. Baker and Peter H. http://www.uga.edu/colonialseminar/P.%20Wood%20Paper.pdf

Note 8. University of Toronto, 1979.

Note 9. Université de Montréal, 2001.

Note 10. J.-P. Lobies, "Lahontan", in J. Balteau, et al,Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, Paris, Letouzey and Ané, t. 19, 2001, p.727-728 ; J. F. Bosher, "Lahontan", in A. C. Kors, ed., Encyclopedia of theEnlightenment, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003, t. 3, p. 343-344. In reality, the majority of current encyclopedias(Britannica, Larousse, Universalis) speak less of Lahontan than of the articlepublished in 1873 in volume X [10] of the GrandDictionnaire Universel de Pierre Larousse.

Note 11. <http://pagesperso-orange.fr/bearn-acadie-nouvelle-france/histoire/barondelahontan.html>.

Note 12. The French commune of Lahontan, "a peacefulvillage of 420 souls", does not seem eager to honour the memory of Lahontan.Here is a short description of the current situation: "35 minutes from Bayonneand 40 minutes from Pau on the A64, Lahontan is located at the foot of lush foothills,near the Gave de Pau, about halfway between the beaches of the Gulf of Gascogneand the hilltop resorts of the Atlantic Pyrénées. § A former feudal feifdom(that once belonged to Michel Eyquem de Montaigne in the 16^thcentury), Lahontan became a barony around 1650. In 1662, Isaac de Lom D'Arcebecame the second Baron of Lahontan when he purchased it. Here Louis Armand deLom D'Arce, man-at-arms, ethnographer and philosopher ante littram was born on June 9^th, 1666" (http://pagesperso-orange.fr/bearn-acadie-nouvelle-france/association/associationcommunes.html).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LAHONTAN, Œuvres complètes, éditioncritique par Réal Ouellet, avec la collaboration d'Alain Beaulieu, Montréal,les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, coll. «Bibliothèque du Nouveau Monde»,1990, 1474p.

Doctoral theses

BOISVERT, France, Le développement des genreslittéraires dans l'oeuvre de Lahontan, thèse de doctorat en étudesfrançaises, Université de Montréal, 2001.

NEAVE, Judith Chamberlin, A Study ofHistorical Veracity in the Works of the Baron de Lahontan, thèse dedoctorat, University of Toronto, Département de français, 1979.

Master'stheses

BADET, Valérie, La lettre de voyage au XVIIesiècle : éléments de poétique, mémoire de maîtrise en études françaises,Université de Montréal, 2002.

BAURÉ, Nicolas, Visions du Canada et desCanadiens au siècle des lumières (autour de La Hontan, Charlevoix etRaynal), mémoire de maîtrise, Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, 2000.

COLLIN, Jacques, «La problématique des rapportsentre la nature et la culture. Lahontan, son influence et son occultation»,mémoire de maîtrise, Université Laval, 1984.

MONARD, Anne-Sophie, Panthéon amérindien etpanthéon chrétien dans la littérature sur le Canada au début du XVIIIe siècle,mémoire de maîtrise de lettres modernes, Université de Paris IV / Sorbonne,1996.

PELLERIN,Suzanne, Étude du vocabulaire de 1a fanne et de la flore nord américainesdans les écrits de Lahontan, mémoire de maîtrise, Université Laval(Québec), 1978.